In Your Arms I Find the Answer
by Equestrienne Dreams
Summary: "It was always going to be him; she knows that now." Gibbs and Sloane, and coming home. Episode tag to 16x10, 'What Child is This'.
1. Chapter 1

"You were right."

"Hm?"

"This is _definitely_ better than skiing."

He chuckles, warm and low, watching her in the firelight as she leans forward to set her glass on the table. She grins at him over her shoulder, smiling wider as he opens his arms in invitation, and curls into him with a sigh of pure contentment. Head pillowed on his shoulder, his arms securely around her, she feels...

She feels...

God. She feels _home_.

"Jack?" His voice is warm in her ear, impossibly comforting, and she can't help it. She turns, hiding her face in his chest, free hand fisting in the worn cotton of his navy hoodie, and shudders with tears she's still too scared to shed.

This is impossible. It can't be happening, and yet it can't _not_ be happening. She never wants to leave his arms, and it _terrifies_ her.

He brushes a kiss to the top of her head and she shakes again, clutching him tighter, pressing even closer.

"Jack," he says again, more urgent now - she has to be scaring the hell out of him, but she can't help it. Can't hold on, can't let go... "Baby, talk to me," he says, and that does it. Eyes squeezed shut, she shakes her head, trembling all over.

"I can't," she whispers. Her voice hitches, then breaks - and then she's crying, hoarse, ugly sobs shuddering out of her as the barriers of a lifetime come tumbling down all at once.

"Ah, Jack," he whispers, and his arms tighten about her in instinctive reaction.

It was always going to be him; she knows that now. He's looked her brokenness square in the face and answered it with his own, understands her in a way so few ever have or ever will. They've been circling toward this from the moment they met, found trust before there was love, and now...

She cries and cries, holds on to the way he strokes her hair, the way he kisses her forehead and holds her close. He is not a demonstrative man but he is a caring one, more so than she thinks most people would ever suspect, and feels more deeply than all but a few would ever give him credit for. And now, with his voice in her ear and his breath on her hair, she's never felt so safe.

She never does know how long she cries; in the end she doesn't think it matters. Gently he tilts her chin up, wipes her tears away with his thumb as he looks her in the eyes. His gaze is impossibly blue and she feels herself drawn in, magnetized, helpless.

Nothing in the world, she thinks later, could have stopped her from kissing him then.

He groans against her mouth, arms crushing her to him, and her last worry vanishes as though it had never been.

 _Please_ , she thinks, helpless and aching as heat pools in her belly. _Oh, please, yes_.

* * *

Pulling away from her kiss nearly kills him.

She whimpers, eyes hooded, flushed and panting, and leans in again, but he stops her with a gentle hand on her cheek.

"This can't be casual."

Her eyes snap to his, all the mists of desire cleared in an instant, and he shrugs, helpless. There is no choice, not for him. This is everything... or nothing.

"I can't," he tries again, and clears his throat. "I can't be casual with you. Not with you. This is..."

 _This is everything_ , he wants to say. _This is what I thought I'd never have again_.

For a moment his thoughts drift to Holly - the long-ago love he'd loved so dearly, but had never quite, in the end, been able to let in completely. He doesn't regret her, not for an instant - how could he? - but somehow he also knows that _this_ is who he's meant to be with, and the certainty stuns him.

Jack is different. Jack has _always_ been different; he doesn't know how or when, he just knows that she _is_. Somehow she slipped inside his walls when he wasn't even looking, and now there is no other path for them than this.

Her eyes are dark with something else entirely now, her expression unreadable, and he holds his breath.

Then, quite deliberately, she takes one of his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together, squeezing tight. His breath stutters in his chest, and she wraps her other hand around their intertwined fingers, lifts his hand to her lips, and bows her head.

The brush of her lips on his knuckles says everything, and more. She kisses the weathered skin with passion, with reverence - even, he thinks, with wonder. She sniffles, tears still glimmering in her eyes, and when their eyes meet again he can see the flush on her cheeks.

"This was _never_ going to be casual." Her voice is hoarse with longing, and something deep inside him snaps into place at last.

"You and me?" He can hardly dare to hope.

"You and me," she agrees, and then his free hand is on hers and they're holding on tight, so tight. "Til the end of the line."

He shudders, bows his head. Now it's his turn to kiss her hands, to say what he feels in the only way he knows how. She laughs, giddy and delighted, hiding her face against his chest, and it's the most natural thing in the world to gently disentangle their joined hands, to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight against him.

"It's you," he whispers in her ear. "It was always going to be you."

"I know." He can feel the curve of her smile against his chest, feels his own heart swell with it. "For me, too."

This time, when he kisses her, he never means to stop.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes again in the heart of the night. It's far from the first time he's woken on this couch; the fabric is familiar, comforting. Only embers are left of the fire now, and there's a touch of chill to the air, but it's a chill he doesn't feel, because...

Looking down, he finds out why. Jack is cuddled in his arms, her cheek pillowed on his chest, her curly blonde hair spilling over her shoulder like a halo in the starlight. Their legs are tangled together beneath the thin blanket, her knee tucked securely between his legs, and as he blinks down at her in sleepy confusion, she yawns and arches against him.

"Hey." Her smile is soft as she gazes up at him, pink lips just parted, her voice husky, and the heat in his gut comes flaring back to life as her scent swirls around him.

He can't stop himself from kissing her then. Can't stop the way his hand strokes down her back, finding her bare bottom under the loose cotton of the shirt she'd borrowed from him last night; can't stop the way he moans as she sighs into the kiss, soft and willing and _beautiful_.

She's soaking wet when his hand slips between her legs, and she arches into his touch with a startled gasp, her thighs parting on instinct. "Jethro," she rasps, husky and wanting, rocking her hips against his fingers.

It's absurdly easy to tip her over that first edge. She cries out, breathy and helpless, as his fingers enter her; "Come for me," he murmurs, and she does, helpless little noises muffled in his shoulder as she ripples around him.

"Again," she begs, to his amazement. "Jethro, don't stop - "

He doesn't. He knows her better now, knows what will wring that delighted gasp from her lips or those sweet little moans from the back of her throat. Fingers stroking deep inside her, murmuring nonsense into her ear - promises he means more than he's ever meant anything, and will even after he's forgotten exactly what they are - he feels his own urgency build as she sobs into his shoulder and comes again, slick and strong and sweet.

"Please," she says again, an urgency in her voice he's never heard before. "God, I need you in me - "

"Yes," he says, as his vision hazes, clouded by a want so fierce he hasn't felt it in decades. "Do you need - "

She always could read his mind. Scrambling up to straddle him, wet and ready and aching, she rocks against the thick ridge of his erection, helpless little noises bubbling out of her with every stroke. "No," she whispers, even as she reaches between her own legs. "No, God, I trust you, I can't bear - "

It's all he can take. She cries out in earnest as he sinks inside her without warning, her pulse fluttering wildly under the thin skin at her throat. His hands are everywhere, stroking down her sides, her belly, filling his hands with the perfect weight of her breasts; hers are cupping his face as she peppers him with kisses, with soft little bites that will ache for days and bring a stupidly satisfied smile to his lips every time he sees them.

She tries to protest when he reaches for the t-shirt, shaking her head even as her eyes are dazed with desire; but he's having none of it, can't bear for the fabric to remain between them any longer. She sobs a little when his hands find her back at last, running tenderly over the deadened ridges of the network of scars that lattice her back. The skin immediately next to them is hypersensitive, and she cries out with every brush of his fingers over her battered skin.

"Let it go, Jack." He can hardly recognize his own voice, roughened as it is with the ache in his heart and his lungs as he looks at her terrified face. "I'm with you. You understand? I am _with you_."

She lets her tears fall at last, this time crying with love and relief as she begins to shake around him. It has to be hell on her back but she leans over until her lips can brush his, until she can press her cheek to his and kiss her adoration into the curve of his ear and the weathered skin of his cheek.

"I love you," she whispers hoarsely, her voice strained by the ache of desire nearly fulfilled. "God, I love you."

It's her final confession, the last words left unspoken, and the look in her eyes sears him to the heart.

Only later will he remember that he cried, that she kissed his tears from his cheeks with the sweetest of kisses. All he knows now is the truth of his own soul, and the blessing of peace he's been chasing for half a lifetime.

"I love you, too." She chokes out a gasp of disbelieving wonder, and all he can do is cup her cheek in his hand and hope his eyes will show his truth. "I do. I love you, Jack. Till death do us part."

That's when she shatters around him, sobbing his name, pressing helpless kisses to his throat as she comes apart in his arms, and it is the sweetest sound he's ever heard in his life.

Her smile is the last thing he sees before the world goes white.


	3. Chapter 3

"You know, we are going to have to eat at some point today."

"Mmmm," he mumbles, wrapping his arms more securely about her. "Later. Not gonna let you go yet."

She can't really argue with that; this is so new, so wonderful, she's reluctant to leave their bubble of intimacy any time soon. "Pizza later?"

"Sure," he murmurs, clearly more interested in idly tracing the scars on her back with his fingertip. With anyone else she would have shied away, but this isn't anyone else. This is him - the one person with whom she is safe, in every way a person _can_ be safe.

"Gibbs?"

"Hm?"

"When did you know?"

"Know what?" She looks up, the question in her eyes, and he takes a deep breath. "Oh. That this was..."

"Yeah." She tucks herself more firmly into his side; she isn't _nervous_ , not really, and yet...

"I wanted you the minute I met you," he admits, somewhat to her surprise. "And I knew you were... special, during the Hicks case - when you told me about the cabinet?" She nods, makes an affirmative noise in her throat. That day is branded into her memory, too. "By the time you told me about Afghanistan I'd already have moved mountains for you. But when you stared down Hakim, reminded him that _he_ was the monster and you were nothing of the kind - I was so proud I almost burst. You're the bravest person I've ever met, Jack. I looked at you and something just... clicked." He hugs her, tight, and kisses the top of her head. "I didn't want to rush it - couldn't risk going too fast and screwing this up. But that's when I knew."

Gently, he chucks her under the chin. "Your turn."

* * *

Her eyes are so soft.

"Oh, I don't know, Cowboy - "

"Bullshit," he says calmly, and rubs his hand up and down her arm. "Go on. Fair's fair."

She sighs, nestling even closer, and God, but he loves this feeling - the soft warm weight of her in his arms, her hair spilling over his chest, her body relaxed against his. Loves it, loves _her_ , with a painful intensity he thought he'd never feel again.

"I wanted you from the start," she admits, and he nods - the chemistry between them had been crackling almost as loudly as the storm outside, as undeniable as the pouring rain. "I wouldn't have flirted with you that day in the courthouse if I didn't think it could be... real. I don't play games, Gibbs. I'm too old for it and I've seen too much. I knew I loved you when you went missing during the lockdown - with the body on the roof? The idea of you being..." She swallows, hard, and he nods, presses a kiss to her hair. The way she'd hugged him when she found him, up on the roof with a hole in the skylight, had said more than any words could have.

"I know," he says, gently, and strokes her hair. "I know, Jack."

"I knew I loved you then," she continues, her voice rough. "But the day I knew that this was it, that there would never be anyone else for me for as long as you lived - maybe as long as _I_ lived - was..." She trails off, swallows hard. "The Vietnam tapes. You took my hand in yours and our fingers just... _meshed_. Your hand fit in mine like nothing in my life had ever fit before."

 _That_ is a surprise, and yet, looking back...

"That's why you pulled away."

"Yes," she says emphatically, and their fingers twine almost unconsciously on his chest. "If I didn't let go then I'm not sure I ever would've been able to. And... I was scared."

Now he's startled. "Of _me?_ "

"No," she says, rubbing her thumb along his fingers. "And yes. I..." When she looks up at him, her eyes are impossibly vulnerable. "I know how much you love Shannon," she says at last, softly. "And I don't want to replace her, or..."

 _Oh_.

Well. This, at least, he can deal with.

"Jack, look at me," he says firmly, and meets her eyes with his. "The man who married Shannon? That man died with her. Yes, I will always love her. I will always cherish her memory. But you aren't a substitute for anything. You _get_ it - the darkness and the light. That's why I can trust you with everything. I love you, Jacqueline May, as much as I have ever loved anyone in my life."

"Oh," she says, as her eyes mist over. "Oh, Jethro."

"I told you once that nothing had ever eased the ache in my heart. Nothing ever will. But you balance it out. And until I met you I never believed even that was possible." He blinks his own misty eyes clear, then continues, his voice gruff. "Rule number five, Jack. You don't waste good. And you... you're the sunshine after the storm."

She holds his eyes for an impossibly long moment, his heart pounding as something beyond words passes between them.

And then she leans up and kisses him, fierce and wild like the storm that brought them together, and there is nothing left to say at all.


End file.
